


B-Sides

by SC182



Series: Attrition Verse [2]
Category: 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternative Perspective, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:37:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SC182/pseuds/SC182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments in the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/564868?view_full_work=true">Three-Point Turn</a> verse from Verone's side of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reverse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts at the beginning.

The first moment Carter lays eyes on Brian O’Conner he just knows they are destined for bigger things.

O’Conner diffuses the situation with Hector Silvia with the patented cool of MacGuyver holding a brand new pack of gum, a book of matches, and ball of rubber bands. Carter’s guts continuing to keep residence inside his belly and not splattered across the worn vinyl of the Grey Gator’s booth is all a testament of Brian’s smooth intervention.

The Verones have always lived and died by honoring their debts and, to this, Carter is no exception. He truly does owe Brian his life, to which Brian replies, “You can owe me a beer instead.”

A beer, Carter can gladly offer.

Lesser men or those without the sense to separate ego from graciousness might have looked at Brian’s exchange rate as an insult. But Brian carries himself so open and honestly that Carter obliges to buy him a drink and makes plans to get a better read on him. Nothing better to do the latter than a game of pool which requires a few extra trips to the Grey Gator to secure the encounter.

His father has always said that to know a man is to know how he plays. Watching Brian bend over the table, he gets the idea that Brian may grandstand—just showoff relentlessly—but not here, not now. Here, he still calls his shots—takes solids—and works the table with the ease of man with nothing to lose.  

So it happens that Carter finds himself endeared and equally as enthralled with Brian O’Conner, ex-cop, sometime surfer, and habitual street racer. Carter will always count offering Brian a job as one of the smartest things he’s ever done, and Brian taking the job is probably the best thing Brian ever did outside of leaving L.A. It’s not arrogance that allows Carter to think so highly of himself: it’s a matter of fact is all.

Brian beats him that first night at pool. He beats Carter the next night, a few more times in a row, until the final tally stands somewhere around seventy-thirty or maybe sixty-forty. A man has to have his pride, so Carter gets better at not losing to O’Conner.

He remembers saying, “I’m just curious to know how you knew what to do when you did,” with beer in hand and all his attention on O’Conner.

Having to hear, “I used to be a cop,” makes him freeze the mouth of the bottle just outside his lips and his back go stiff, jaw tight and the natural instinct to walk away fires off nerve impulses that he somehow manages to ignore.

But Brian is open. Just rolls with Carter’s questions, answering them without a second guess, all genuine emotion and shadows of heavy emotional baggage barely hidden at the tail-end of his words.

They exchange names and give the try-out a go. Even before that Friday morning in the middle of the parking lot outside of Kennedy Park, Carter knows that _this_ is going to work out. The information gleamed from an intensive search and a favor called in to Whitworth at Metro gives him a little more room to breathe and an extra feeling of assurance that his instincts about Brian are right.

Where most UCs fails is with the initial lie. Carter considers himself an expert on lying, liars, and thieves. He may be a _businessman_ but any businessman worth his weight in salt knows business is half gambling on what he’s got and feinting and maneuvering smoke and mirrors to augment what he doesn’t have.

The initial line about being a cop feels too heavy, almost leaden, but instead of sinking, Brian’s declaration just floats uneasily. What he turns up on Brian O’Conner is too complicated not to be true. If made up, then it sounds like the plot of a really bad action movie. He won’t let on that he knows about Brian’s past, because the city rags say one thing and leaked internal docs say another. The only person who knows what really went down is Brian, who stands at the other end of the lot, smiling at speed-walking passersby and looking far too patient for so early in the morning.   

One day in his world and already Brian fits like a missing piece among the assorted people Carter keeps in his retinue. Then he handles Jean-Pierre’s football bullshit (because Carter will never be sorry over choosing Jamaica over Haiti) and manages to take that deadweight piece of property off of Carter’s hands.

He drives Brian back to the park just as night begins to creep over the city, leaving the cornucopia of bursting flora leeched of color and blanketed by shadow. Carter puts the car in park, makes a mental note to take advantage of Brian’s skills from here on out, while they sit in silence save the frequent whirl of passing traffic and birds homing in on places to nest for the night.

The park is all but empty save for a few people finishing their circuits about the walking paths or pulling their stubborn dogs away from scents too soft to be detected by human noses. Beyond all of this and the stoic palm trees is the bay, quickly fading to the bruise tint of plum before sliding to full black to mirror the approaching clear night sky.

Carter observes Brian in the car. Takes in his calm that translates from the unguarded expressions visible over his profile to the loose hang of his shoulders and the comfortable slump his back makes against the leather bucket seat.

“So thoughts?” He asks because this is the time for Brian to get out and walk away with no problems and no regrets.

“Yeah, actually, this car is sick.”

Of course the car is Brian’s first point of conversation.

“That’s good to know. I plan to take advantage of your skills. Put you to work behind the wheel and not just as a pretty paper pusher and a mouthpiece.” Which will probably play out swimmingly.

Brian turns away from the looming black tide to face Carter, putting those striking blues, now approximately turquoise eyes like highbeams on him. Even in the dark, they have a blinding effect. “Cool,” Brian replies, “I can dig it. But tell me: are the days going to be a lot like today?”

Carter shrugs, “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We roll with the punches—move things and people in the right direction given what we got on tap.” He’s deliberately vague for a reason. It’s the nature of the job, he supposes.

Will Brian call him on it?

No, he doesn’t.

Instead he goes quiet and Carter is left to prompt him again about his thoughts. “Comments, concerns, questions? That strong silent type credo doesn’t always put people at ease.”

“I guess not,” says Brian, a small smile cutting across his lips. “As for comments and concerns: how about a suggestion box. People can drop their ideas in it whenever the mood strikes them. Like right now, I’m all tapped out, so if you’re looking for something specific from me, you might end up disappointed.”

Carter’s not though, not disappointed in the least. “I guess asking you if you think you can keep up is a non-starter, huh?”

Now, Brian does laugh, and it’s a wonderfully deep sound with a touch of raspiness at its edges. It’s definitely something Carter longs to hear again, vows to hear again. “The question is usually asked the other way around. People I happen to know always wonder if they can keep up with me.”

Carter notices that Brian doesn’t say friends or acquaintances. It’s a very strong choice of words he chooses to use, and Carter notes this and gets another buzzing thrill under his skin.  He wants to explore this connection, keep pulling at it until he can expose the roots while getting Brian to take him for a ride in the process.

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

This is just the beginning.


	2. Forward Momentum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Carter thoughts from the beginning.

Spring in Miami is unlike the rest of the country. Blooms and bulbs don’t explode from hibernation but rather the perennial colors heightens, turns feverishly bright and pops, even welcoming the return buzz of insects, birds, and slithering belly-walkers alike.

The only difference between spring and winter is the steady rise in the temperature and the decongestion of the skies. There will be no more arrowheads of noisy northern longneck birds crossing the sky heading south. Needle-billed egrets and flamingoes on occasion fill the sky with loose clouds of white, pink, or red as they seek newly fattened canals and swampy marshes.

But then, there are springs like this, where the expected green of the grass has faded to pale yellow, forming unattractive skunk patches of brittle and dry grasses barely a grade above good kindling. Springs like this that start dry with steadily rising temperatures lingering without the slightest bit of cold  or wet infusion make the locals nervous.

Big reef fishermen, longtime foreign nationals turned residents and melting pot natives alike will all say the same thing regarding local superstition. A hot winter and dry spring only signal the approach of an overly active and devastating hurricane season to come. The Atlantic waters will remain hot and tepid for the churning swells that drift off the former Slave Coast destined to batter the islands in the West Indies before sweeping up to bigger targets.

Not even the constant damp shade of humidity offers much relief. With so much prevailing dryness, it’s only a matter of time before the smallest frictional rub delivers the spark to set everything ablaze.

For them, Braga is the spark.

Once ignited, they take to rolling around on the floor. Each trying to beat the other into submission which is the rub.

When Carter takes control of Brian’s mouth by sealing his lips over the bloody and bitten fissures and grips the cool hard floor for leverage to rock his hips up into Brian’s, he ends up stealing not only Brian’s breath but any lingering traces of the coolness in his demeanor. Carter burns it away with the force of his body, his anger, his lust, and forces Brian to meet him swell for swell, rage to burning rage. What’s left is the sting of searching teeth and the burn of landed fists bruising skin and, shortly thereafter, the electric roll of chemical energy liberated from each neural synapse between peaks in the spine and the hot, wet, sticky explosion down below.

This is the fire.

Carter does something very uncharacteristic the night Brian walks out: he waits. Pulls himself off the floor to lean against couch thrown off center by the momentum of their colliding bodies and tests his jaw. The hinge is stiff, already swelling from Brian’s sucker punch, which draws a hiss from him as he tastes the iron—now dull and flaking—on his lips. It reminds him of old pennies.

“Goddamnit, O’Conner.” Who is he swearing at? Not Brian who isn’t around to hear him or maybe himself for being foolish enough to let Brian leave. “Gotta get his ass back here.” For more reasons than a few.

Carter is still hard, still reeling from finally having Brian beneath him. Whatever Brian has assumed about Carter’s show of physical attention and intention isn’t half as indicative of what Carter actually wants.

That evening in the Mercedes after Brian’s tryout is the moment Carter decided that he wanted Brian. Has decided to undertake the experiment of mixing business and pleasure with fuck-all cares about the consequences. Because he and Brian O’Conner are meant to together as a team and all the rest will be freaking glorious.

So he goes for broke, beginning his campaign with subtle intrusions into Brian’s space—a hand on his shoulder, hands resting low in the valley of his back, a fleeting touch here or there upon the hip, a darting deliberate smack on the ass. Brian has every opportunity to call him on it, to make him back down if he happens to be barking up the wrong tree but Brian never does. He only implicitly encourages Carter with a vivid spark in eerily crystal blue eyes that will always remind Carter of the union of the sky and sea in Tierra del Fuego.

His blitzkrieg to get Brian to relent only makes Brian resist more, though he bends and molds to fit into the space Carter has set out for him but fills it as he wishes and not as Carter has set.

Waiting on the floor has to be one of the weakest things he’s ever done. Finally, he drags his ass off the cold tile, barely acknowledging the sticky wetness in his boxers with more than a bitter laugh. Carter needs a drink—McLaren, straight and two fingers worth with no rocks, because ice is for pussies—and leans against the bar thinking, just thinking.

Now that he’s gotten a taste, there’s no going back.  He’s had a taste and all he wants is another. He’s learned from his father how to be a shark; how to circle his prey in tighter and tighter circles until it can’t get away, then and only then will he devour it. But this lesson will be hard to apply to O’Conner, who can turn on a dime and has an ingrained instinct to never get backed into a corner or any space he can’t bust out of.

The next day he won’t think about how he spent half the night waiting and drinking far too much, pacing the icy floors like a worried housewife. Every time he calls Brian, the ringer flips to voicemail and his texts go unanswered.

Between the swell of his fury and his slow burning arousal and alcohol soaked thoughts of Brian being in trouble either at Braga’s hands or his at the fault of his own invincibility complex, Carter decides to put Roberto and Enrique on his tail. That will piss the pretty bastard off just enough to give Carter a minor taste of satisfaction to hold him over until he can get Brian upstairs in his bed.

The Calvin Klein shades he sports the next morning have a dual purpose: one, they keep his head from snapping off his shoulders under the duress of his hangover and two, they cover the nice lovetaps Brian laid on him the night before.

The rickety dinghy Brian calls his houseboat is a disgrace. Carter is almost insulted that with all the money he pays Brian and the money Brian squirrels away from racing pimply teenagers and jackasses with gauche gold grills—because everyone knows it’s platinum or bust— and he’s still  living in this shithole.

He’ll wrangle Brian back to his side with pointed words, insults, and the understated worry about his safety should Braga decide to take offense. It’s nothing more than he normally does when they work, except this time; Carter is very much the client and demands to be satisfied.

 Brian comes out of his hovel to be graced with Carter’s warm and smiling presence. The asshole doesn’t even have the good sense to look and feel as busted up as Carter does. Carter hates him just as much as he’s turned on by Brian’s resiliency.

He gives the mooring and the plank a dubious look. Seriously, he wonders, how the hell Brian found this place.  “This is shameful. I certainly pay you enough to live better than this.” He pays all his people better than this place implies. Calling the houseboat a cockroach whorehouse will stand as an insult to cockroaches. But it’s either say that or state the obvious. “It’s very Cape Fear.”  
  
The responding look is all smartass smooth, “I like it,” Brian says drolly.    
  
Of course he does. Continuously, Carter learns to not be surprised by anything Brian says or does. Expecting nothing less than the unexpected is proving to be the right course of action when dealing with all situations O’Conner. 

He steps to the mouth of the ramp, where the wood meets the concrete and decides to go no farther.  “Take the day off.” Carter waits for Brian to use the time to get his ass in gear and leave this place behind.  
  
Brian stands across from him on the other side of the wood, which might as well be the other side of the world, separated by a vast ocean in lieu of a short board of wood, plastic, and steel. “Why?” Brian snorts. “Remember I quit.”  
  
Carter heard him say just that but turned a deaf ear to it because Carter isn’t ready for them to be over. It’s sad, he thinks, how much Brian should know better and realize that when Carter wants, he gets.

So Carter pulls a face, rolls his eyes and makes his directive clearer by saying, “Pack up this piece of shit and move into the house. It doesn’t make sense to live here; especially with all the room I’ve got.”  
  
Does Brian heed instruction? Not very damn well.  He leans against the siding with lazy posture, though Carter’s eyes hone in on the long corded muscles of his neck and the stark bruising dotting the skin in an irregular pattern. He takes pride in knowing he did that to Brian’s skin, planted his mark of ownership for all and sundry to see.

But Brian has to be difficult. “Why would I want to move in with you? I have my own space for a reason and you have yours.” Carter wants to remove the breezy smile from Brian’s face—not like last night with his fist, but his mouth and nothing else. There’s this dark desire that demands he take Brian apart and see if he feels this same need on the inside. See if Brian is just as demanding and wanting like Carter.

Brian angles closer ever so slightly, and then Carter knows he does.  “I guess you like having your booty on call,” Brian manages, looking far too pleased with himself. Carter has no problems with having this booty around but he’ll take those eyes, his heart, and ever-loving soul while he’s here on his mission to collect all things Brian.

Carter has had his hands on the booty in question and can accurate render its value at a solid five hundred G’s. A half million dollars is very expensive. He’s given it his visual inspection because Brian’s trunks leave nothing to the imagination after he gets out of the pool and, more importantly, he’s had his hands all over said ass and knows for a fact that it’s high, tight, round and covered with a light dusting of late Georgia summer peach fuzz. It’s ready to go, too, should Brian ever get with the program.  
  
It’s all a test. If Brian believed they’d been playing chicken before, Carter now intends to show him that the game was actually Russian Roulette. He gives the plank a withering look before stalking up its length to face Brian. “Maybe,” he begins,” you like yours that way too.”

 If ever he’d forgotten that he was all shark, full of pure predatory instinct and no fear, this moment serves to remind him. Once the distance between them is breached, he reaches out and reels Brian in by the neck, so that they’ll be nearly nose to nose and eye to eye. He’s never been with anyone long enough to be more than casually possessive but, here and now, with his marks dotting Brian’s neck from the corner of his jaw to the rise of his clavicle, Carter only feels pride.

 “You keep saying no, O’Conner, but sometimes--” but all Carter hears and sees is the contrary, “As they say, ‘no’ means ‘yes’ and I’m sure as hell you enjoyed what we did.” He can walk anytime he wants but Brian chooses not to. He wants to stay. He wants what Carter is offering.  
  
The hand holding onto Brian is dislodged by Brian swatting it off. “Yeah, I enjoyed knocking some sense into you,” sounding wholly defiant and stubborn.  
  
Carter’s had enough.

The night before was awful, full of embarrassing shit that he will suppress with lots of alcohol and sex (not necessarily in that order); his mouth tastes like something has crawled inside and died and his dick is ready to revolt the longer he remains this close to Brian without either of them getting naked.

So he crowds Brian against the wall, fuck anyone who’s watching and Brian pretending to be unimpressed. Carter can see his pulse jump like it’s doing the salsa on acid, then growls “You’re lucky you got that one. As I keep saying, you’re special.”

He pauses, “If someone else did what you did, rest assured they would be deader than dead.”  He knows how much Brian hates being reminded of how pretty he is but up close like this and the flawless planes of his skin and the precise arrangement of his features makes reaching out to touch him all the harder.

Carter leans in, so closely in fact, his breath tickles the outer shell of Brian’s ear, and he watches as it fills with blood to blush the faintest shade of red before trailing his bottom lip over the outer arche.

He keeps his touch light, gentle like a feather as he speaks, “So now, you’re going in there and you’ll start packing your shit.” He brings the tip of his nose down the smooth slope behind Brian’s ear and down into the light raspy patch of stubble shadowing Brian’s jaw. “If you need help, Enrique and Roberto will help you.” Enrique and Roberto are just a call away and it will be better to keep them that way until the two of them are finished.

“ –And you and I both know,” Carter continues after a small kiss is dropped on the corner of his jaw, “—that you want this as much as I do.”

Eye to eye like this, he can see it the moment Brian decides to go for broke. The moment when he licks his lips, which grow shiny, wet and pink, even the bruised seam, attractive like a magnet to the eye, Brian darts his eyes downwards and away to spy Carter’s mouth, which is also barely parted but equally wanting.  
  
Brian’s been screwed over enough by his choices, as a cop, a racer, and as a man unsure of his direction,  so Carter can forgive him just this once for his hesitance and Carter backs off then. “You know when dinner is, so plan to be there.” He takes his leave then without another touch or taste. The expectation of Brian showing up later is an aperitif for sweeter pleasures to come. 

Let Brian watch him as he walks away. The view alone should give Brian proper motivation to get the lead out.

  
Behind him, he hears Brian protests, “Fuck you, Carter.” _Anytime, baby._  
  
Throwing back his head, he laughs; the sound filling the air over the whistle of the wind and the whirl and lurch of freighters laden with bicycles and assorted mechanical bric-a-brac to the islands across the Caribbean. Why not laugh? It’s been a hell of a day.

 “I’m planning on it, baby. Waiting for it, actually.” Which has never been truer.

Carter approaches his car, runs his hands over the sun-heated hood, and calls over his shoulder, “We work ridiculous hours. It doesn’t make sense to schlep across the city to sleep on your dinghy on the Miami River.”

  
In his mind’s eye, Carter can see Brian leaning over the railing, watching as attentively as a hawk circling prey. “Are you offering to let me dock my dinghy out back?” Brian presses.  
  
There’s no way in hell that Brian’s river rat palace is getting anywhere near his spread. “No,” Carter replies, “You should cut your losses with the boat and move in. I’ll have Rosa set up a room.”  
  
“If I say no…” Brian’s tone is subtly mocking, baiting Carter but undoubtedly playful.  
  
Carter smiles back. “You won’t.” Because Brian wants this just as much as Carter.

He’ll see him soon.

* * *

Nights later clouds fill the sky, pouring down fat sheets of hot rain and loud booming claps of thunder and lightning to illuminate the dark. His body is exhausted, each muscle well and truly spent—wrung out and loose from energy expended hours before—and alive with the lingering burn of fatigue.

Sleep fails to descend over him; his mind is a buzzing hive of thoughts and memories on loop of sensations—touch, taste, sound, sight—flaring to life.

With the rain so inviting and his body at ease, Carter positions himself in the space between the spread wings of the balcony doors. Black gauzy curtains flutter on the breeze like ravens in flight, giving him a taste of his many homes as a child.

During the small measure of peace, he savors all the flavors bursting across his tongue—his cigar, the first after a couple of activity filled days rolls over his tongue, spicy and sweet; sweat—salty and sharp; skin—a fine balance of seawater, salt and indescribable accents like blood; and spooge, bitter and far from the worst thing he’s tasted from between another’s legs.

He smiles at the rain, because why not? He is Carter Verone: businessman, collector, and connoisseur. A fucking hedonist now, truth be told.

Even while forced to surrender to a deluge, the City gleams brightly and he surveys it from his seat like a king upon his throne. Drop a couple of million on a house, it better have a great view. It’s more than appropriate for him to think in such grand terms, having conquered his final mountain, and what a pleasurable mounting it was.

He’s a man that has known wealth all his life; also known the burden of hard work and the satisfaction of reaping the fruits of his labors. Carter is also greedy, ever hungry and wanting more. That will never change. Even now, feeling boneless and aching with bruises and scratches he wants more, but knows Brian needs to sleep it off.

A man of modernity, he favors designs of sleek and sharp angles like the Scandinavians, except in the case of his bed, cars, and the old radio given to him by his old grizzled desert-beaten grandfather. Enrique, Roberto, and Ale have all teased him for his obsession with the battered RCA player. It carries heft and history and the only medium capable of capturing the litany of emotion in the voices of old latin voices singing boleros—canciones romanticas—to hearts distant or drowning under the tides of heavy passion.

The songs composed of the union of drum and gypsy guitar ride the pitter patter of the rain in synchrony.  He listens to the music, eyes lost on the rain and his head still lost in the memories of the days prior.

Very few people know how sentimental Carter is. In this business, to have such attachment is to be perceived as weak. Already, he stands with weakened position among his so-called peers because he refuses to hide that he and Brian are partners in every sense. Fuck’em if they think he’s weak. Fuck ‘em if they think he’s a pussy.

The singer croons in a velvety voice things that Carter only unleashes in his thoughts but will never cross his tongue when fully sober. So he drifts now while the air is pregnant with sound and scent and it’s a wonder that Brian can sleep through it all.  The current carries out the stale scent of sweat and cum, only to be replaced by ozone and Cuban herbs.

A man’s voice, old and weathered, rasps to the tune and spills the hallows of his feelings-- _Te amo, te amo de una manera inexplicable, de una forma inconfesable, de un modo contradictorio_ —haunting and so apropos.

Glancing back as lightning flashes, it streaks the sky and the room at his back. Painting Brian’s back in lines of black and white on canvas of white sheets. Beautiful is the sight. One that he plans to see in the future in times of good and bad weather to come.

For two days, they’ve been holed up here.

He presents the snare that first afternoon, lies back on the soft cotton sheets and waits for Brian to join him; he does, just falls in beside Carter, giving him his first real taste.

They miss dinner that night.

And breakfast.

Lunch.

Dinner again.

Rosa leaves a tray of food outside the door every few hours, which serves to reset the cycle. Rise to eat, to shower, fall back into cool embrace of dirty sheets, rinse and repeat.

Day Two: the day just passed and is dedicated to savoring. As he remembers rising with the sun hours earlier—a rare event in itself—he counts fucking Brian half a dozen times and still being ready and wanting more.

Greed has always been one of his contradictory assets: a strength and a flaw. Right now, as he begins to prop himself on his elbows and looks to Brian sprawled out and snoring lightly beside him and dead to the world for by all logical rights, he knows that it is only the beginning—of the day and of the growing need to warm up his body with the assistance of another warm body over his.

Does he strike fast or slow?

The morning breaking beyond the high terrace windows is a fuzzy orange, dewy and evocative of the fast slide to yellow in a series of lights. Slow, it is.

Turning on his hip, Carter slides across the questionably clean valley of cotton sheet between them until his chest brackets Brian’s side.  From here, he examines the canvas of Brian’s back. His shoulders, rising and falling slow and deeply, are broad and lean, swimmer’s shoulders. Dusted too with the finest of fine golden hairs that lead up and thicken and darken at the base of his neck, then swell and erupt into thick wavy curls—the color of true summer wheat—shamelessly demanding to be disturbed by his hands.

His fingers have traveled through Brian’s thick hair, creating furrows and paths for better leverage. With the approach of the sun, Carter plans to revisit them.

On those same shoulders are spots of color—pinks, reds, and leavening shades of purple.  Carter counts, “One, two, three, four….” Most by his own hand or searching mouth; a few, courtesy of the hard floor and the fight after disagreeing about Braga.

There’s a part of him that wants to take care to not disturb Brian from sleep. But the more honest part of him doesn’t give a shit and wants Brian active and live like a loose current.

Carter takes his hand that’s been so fascinated by the bruises and snakes it along the shallow curves of Brian’s back. He works from north to south over the peaks of the shoulders blades, sitting high and proud like the peaks of the Andes to the deep canal that sinks down and disappears beneath the mouth of the sheet. The fucking sheet hides Brian’s first—no, second—no, third—really one of his more attractive features. It’s probably the best ass he’s had north of the Tropic of Cancer, or, more truthfully, the best above el equatorio.

If recognizing that he’s well and truly gone on Brian isn’t apparent, then the urge to pick up where he left off as a lovesick teenager writing bad love poetry is. For all his metal and unbustable balls, once upon a time, he, too, was a dumbass kid with too much time on his hands and far too much attachment to every pretty girl that crossed his path. Now Brian’s ass is amazing and real work of art, but he is too old and too much of everything else to waste time thinking of eighteen words to describe said ass instead of actually feeling said ass.

“Million dollar ass,” he murmurs into the base of Brian’s neck.

Inhaling shallowly with a start, Brian tenses before dark eyelashes flutter hard, beating together in erratic tics for sleep soft (aquamarine by the morning light) eyes.

“Make it five million and I’d say you’re right.”

Carter laughs out right, drops his forehead into Brian’s back and laughs. No matter what time of day, he can always count on Brian being quick.

“You’re sporting some serious crazy eyes right now; should I be worried?”

“That depends,” Carter starts, crawling  his fingers down  the deep slop of Brian’s pelvic valley, “you up for a challenge?” Obvious answer, yes; inches below where Carter’s fingers halt, Brian’s dick makes an immodest tent under the sheet.

Brian sits up, “I’m listening,”

“I’m ready to go,” Carter smirks.

Brian drops his eyes between them, his brows perking up at the sight. The snort he makes is half sleep-filled and half clawing at wakefulness. “That I can see, but the kitchen is closed,” he bites back a hiss as full rises to sit.  

Now Carter’s lips split into a seductive smile. “Really, that was half the challenge. I guess you figured you wrong then, O’Conner.”

“How’s that?” Brian will always press a challenge no matter what it is. This shows Carter’s greed is Brian’s kryptonite.

“You’re always talking about speed, so I thought I’d join for once.” Leaning in, Carter presses his cheek to Brian’s, bites his lip at needle-like pricks of their stubble colliding in a slow graze of friction. Nose tip turned the outward slope of Brian’s cheek, he inhales roughly then whispers, “I wanna start slow--real slow, all yellow light—then  faster and a stop—red light—and finally,” his lips settle lowering, lapping and chewing Brian’s earlobe and the smooth skin hidden behind it.

He breathes in the heavy sweaty musk entrenched here. “Yeah, and finally, faster, fucking fast enough to keep you here another two days and unable to get off my dick.”

Brian’s breath hitches. He turns to drop his head and takes Carter’s smirking mouth under his own. When he draws back, he steals a hiss from Carter too and snags his teeth on the lower right corner before letting go."Sounds… _fun_. But who says it going to be your dick though?”

Carter rolls up to his knees and crowds Brian back until he rests on his elbows again. “Who says it’s not?”His voice is all darkly predatory and hungry for satisfaction.

“It feels weird to say this, but I think we may be headed for too much sex territory.”

Carter slides a knee between Brian’s legs and cages Brian between his arms.  Like a snake, he coils around Brian to pin him down but he does not strike, merely rumbles a purr, “There’s no such thing as too much sex, O’Conner. Just bad sex and good sex.”

“And this is too much good sex.”

“Wrong,” he says, slithering his way down to peel back the sheet. “There can never be too much good sex.”

He does strike then. First with tongue, then with his hands skirting along all ridges and disturbed ranges of Brian’s lean muscles and down to his hips, where he flips him over and, lastly, uses his dick to take him through the circuit of slow, fast, stop, and faster.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Back to here and now and the pre-morning rainfall to listen to his thoughts.

Carter Verone is a gambler. He goes for broke, ups the ante and waits to be proven right. Doing this with Brian is a gamble like anything else. The moment he realizes just how easy he is in Brian’s presence and acknowledges Brian as one of the few people he’d like to keep around even when there’s no business to be done. He does the only thing he can: he feels Brian up every chance he gets.

He doesn’t get handsy with Brian like he’s a two dollar Tijauana whore. His hands have a set course to be inspecting. So employs a variety of techniques: palming, clutching stroking, guiding, and smacking to test them both. Because Brian is just as much to blame for the situation as Carter is.

Carter is what is referred to as classically handsome—rugged, sharp, well-tailored masculine features. Brian, on the other hand, is pretty or beautiful—face too symmetrical, features too clear, and intangibly delicate. To say either name to his face, fills Brian with inextinguishable fire that resembles flames dancing over cold steel and only then will Carter take the risk of calling him what he rightly is—gorgeous.

To surround himself with the extremes of Brian’s raging fire and terrible frost is all he wants to keep his greed satisfied. That Brian has decided to give it to him and to be with him is worth more than anything any of these bottom feeders, sycophants, and nouveu rich poseurs and counterfeiters can say or do.

Fuck labels.

They can write their own.

Carter abandons labels the moment he puts his hand on Brian’s ass without the expectation of getting punched afterwards.

At his Tio’s knee, he learns that people will always talk. There’s no literal harm in talking unless it’s snitching, and while snitches are universally despised, name calling is childish and uninspired. His Tio pulls him aside not long after he meets Brian, back when he’s all but chasing after him because he has more teenage chutzpah than sense. His Tio, old school but understanding, makes him wise up, tells him, “Sticks and stones can hurt, but words don’t mean shit until they’re backed up by a fist. Better yet a brick.”

So he never lets anyone catch him unawares. 

If anyone tossing a brick, it’s him.

Or Brian.

When Brian exhales tiredly, calling him back to their bed with, “Stop thinking about how it’s lonely at the top and bring your cold feet back over here.”

“Shut up, Brian.” Carter stubs out the end of his cigar on a puddle forming on the railing and rises. He leaves the doors open to bring in a draft and to cut through the musk and pheromone-saturated fog of sweat and sex.

For two nights and two days, they’ve been bound up in each other in this bed, learning to speak each other’s languages and breathe the other’s breath.

He drops trou before sliding between the sheets and wrapping himself around Brian. He slides his cold feet up to Brian’s warm flesh, hunkers down to return to sleep and siphon off warmth from the _carne tremula_ in his arms.

Where Brian wants cold, Carter needs heat, and, balancing each other, they return to sleep.

Brian is the match to his kerosene.

Carter can’t wait to watch the world burn.

Forever and always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
>  _Te amo, te amo de una manera inexplicable, de una forma inconfesable, de un modo contradictorio_ \- I love you. I love you in an inexplicable way, in a shameful way, in a contradictory manner. From the poem, ["Te Amo"](http://www.elixiresparaelalma.com/te-amo-de-pablo-neruda/)by Pablo Neruda
> 
>  _Carne Tremula_ \- Live Flesh


End file.
